Below is an excerpt from CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta 's new book , `` Cheating Death : The Doctors and Medical Miracles that Are Saving Life Against All Odds '' published by Wellness Central , an imprint of Grand Central Publishing . The following is from Chapter Two : A Heart-Stopping Moment :

`` Cheating Death : The Doctors and Medical Miracles that Are Saving Lives Against All Odds , '' just hit store shelves .

And he went up , and lay upon the child , and put his mouth upon his mouth , and his eyes upon his eyes , and his hands upon his hands : and stretched himself upon the child ; and the flesh of the child waxed warm .

-- 2 Kings 4:34 , KJV

Mike Mertz was driving home , an hour after finishing his run as a school bus driver in Glendale , Arizona . He told me he does n't remember why he did n't come straight home from work that day . He thinks that maybe he went for a jog . A trim fifty-nine years old , Mertz enjoyed a two - or three-mile run several days a week . Maybe he was looking for a cheaper gas station than the one on his usual route or was just trying to avoid taking his Saturn over a nasty set of new speed bumps . Whatever the reason , whatever route he wandered , it brought Mertz not to the usual entrance of his townhome complex , but the back driveway . The change in routine may have saved his life .

Corey Ash , a UPS driver , was making deliveries that Wednesday afternoon , when he heard a terrible engine noise . Thinking the sound was underneath his own hood , he pulled over . Hopping out , Ash immediately realized that it was coming from a Saturn almost directly across the street .

It was an accident scene . The small silver car was piled up against a palm tree , the engine revving at top speed . The only thing keeping it in place was a stucco wall a few feet from the tree ; the car was wedged between the two . Racing over , Ash could see that the driver had his eyes closed and seemed to be unconscious . The driver 's foot was wedged against the accelerator . Ignoring the chance that the car might break free and crush him , Ash reached across the slumped body and turned off the ignition . He dragged Mertz out of the car and laid him on the ground . After dialing 911 , Ash started CPR the way he 'd learned during an Air National Guard training exercise just two months before .

As he listened to the ambulance siren , racing up the road from Glendale Fire Station 154 barely a mile away , Ash began to pump hard on Mertz ' chest . Studies show that when a bystander jumps in , the chances of survival in a cardiac arrest case increase exponentially . Even though it may not seem like you are accomplishing much , simply pushing the heart and circulating the blood can make a tremendous difference . Mertz had that going for him , but he was also fortunate to have collapsed in Glendale . Paramedics there are at the forefront of a revolution in emergency care . With a few simple measures -- going against the grain of the medical establishment -- they have found that they can radically improve the odds of surviving a cardiac arrest .

The fire engine pulled up with a screech , and a brawny firefighter named Ruben Florez jumped to the curb . As fellow firefighters scrambled down , Florez thumped an urgent rhythm on Mertz ' chest , two hundred compressions over two minutes , before a medic stepped in and delivered an electric shock from the paddles of a defibrillator . Win a signed copy of Dr. Gupta 's book

Then came another two hundred compressions , then shock , two hundred compressions , then shock . Finally , after six hundred thumps and three defibrillator shocks , a weak pulse returned . Mertz was back from the dead . At no point was mouth-to-mouth resuscitation performed , and at no point did Mike Mertz get a breath . Surprisingly , that may be the real reason he survived .

In reality , survival from cardiac arrest outside the hospital is rare . Until very recently , Arizona was in line with the rest of the country -- only about 2 percent of the victims pulled through without long-term damage . But in 2005 , cities around Arizona began doing something new . It went against the guidelines of the American Medical Association and the teaching practices of major medical schools and hospitals . This new method did n't look like the CPR that had been taught in every YMCA , firehouse , school , and church ever since the 1970s . In short , it was a radical experiment .

The experiment sprang from two lines of thinking : animal studies aimed at modifying CPR technique and a public health effort to train more people in CPR . If your heart gives out while you 're walking down the street , the number-one thing that can save your life is to have a bystander who is not only trained in CPR , but willing to help . Unfortunately , such help is rare . Published studies put the rate of bystander CPR at around 20 percent . If you dig deep , the number really has nothing to do with the lack of desire . Instead , study after study shows people are apprehensive about putting their mouth on someone else 's and maybe catching an infection from someone who 's on the ground dying .

Now , the reluctance can be overcome . In Seattle , which has run massive training programs and public education campaigns since the 1970s , the rate of CPR assistance from bystanders is close to 50 percent . That one fact gets much of the credit for the city 's high survival rate from cardiac arrest . In recent years , a driving goal of the American Heart Association has been to encourage more members of the public to jump in and help . But how ? There was simply no getting around mouth-to-mouth resuscitation . Or was there ?

Excerpted from `` Cheating Death , '' by Sanjay Gupta , M.D. Copyright © 2009 by Sanjay Gupta , M.D. Used by permission of Wellness Central , an imprint of Grand Central Publishing . All rights reserved .

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While driving home , Mike Mertz went into cardiac arrest and crashed his car

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UPS driver Corey Ash saw the accident , pulled Mertz out and began CPR

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CPR without mouth-to-mouth resuscitation may have saved Mertz life

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Pushing the heart and circulating the blood can make a tremendous difference